Frostbite

Granny Sal ashed her cigarette in the jewel encrusted bowl Wade stole off some minor royal in Morocco five years ago and blew a trail of smoke out of the corner of her mouth. At her left, Neena stared down at the cards in her hands—three of them—and sipped on some of the fancy Japanese whisky one of the bar's regular clients dropped off.

"We don't have to do this," Weasel said from Neena's left. Cool Ranch dusted his fingers and kept away from dirtying the five cards in his hand and his gaze flickered around him from behind smudged glasses. "We can end this civilly. Peacefully."

To his left, Peter regarded his own five cards with an intensity saved for AP exams. He said nothing as he reached for the bowl of Spicy Sweet Chili, the most underappreciated Doritos flavor, and laid in wait. Wade rounded out the circle at the table and grinned too widely over his ten cards, sharp and pointed and endlessly malicious.

"Peace was never an option, you cock-guzzling lizard." He slammed a +4 in the center of the table. "Make it as yellow as the piss bottle tower near the dumpster!"

Sal stuck the cigarette back between her lips and dropped another +4 on the pile. "Keep it yellow, sugars. Can we shoot whoever's leavin' that nasty shit outside?"

Neena's stuck down a +4 of her own. God. "Yellow's good. I thought there was a camera in the alley anyway because someone would not stop vomiting in the same place no matter how much cat litter you put on it." She looked at her cards. "Also, I'm loving this frankenstein deck. There's a million cards in here and it's full of hate."

"This is what happens when you keep every Uno deck you get over ten fucking years—you birth a monster with fifty red zeroes." Weasel side-eyed her with a patented stink eye and stacked a yellow +2 right on top of it. Neena jumped in with her own green +2 and a chipper call of Uno. "Jesus Fuck, I gotta purge this nightmare."

He raised his head, made direct eye contact with Wade, and dropped a blue +2 into the mix.

Wade started to sweat.

"Petey, listen." Wade turned to the laser-focused teen who hadn't looked away from the cards once this round. "It wasn't supposed to be this way—you're my elbow buddy, my second in command, we bunked together in Vietnam and I let you have the rest of my chewing gum rations—"

"What's the best Doritos flavor?"

Wade shut his mouth with an audible clack.

Peter slowly spun in his seat, feeling like he should be leisurely petting one of those sphynx cats. But Josephine was the perfect substitute for such a role and allowed him to pet her head as she loafed in his lap.

"One easy answer," he prompted. "Or I'll crumble the kingdom you built on nothing but expensive liquor and a dream."

"I have honor."

"You have a choice."

Wade held his chin high despite lowering himself onto his own chopping block. "And my choice is to stand behind my Spicy Nacho and never betray her to the likes of you, you purple-bag sympathizer."

Peter sighed and shook his head. "That's a shame, soldier. We could've won this war together."

He pulled from the middle of his hand and sealed his comrade's fate with an ugly, disgusting red +2.

Wade screamed.

"That's what your dumbass gets," Sal huffed as she put down a red three and didn't blink when Neena emptied her hand with a red seven and cinched her place at the top for the eighth game in a row. "Play stupid games, win Super Loser for the fifth time today."